Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties

Prime Green is a tour through the experience of one of America's great writers and thinkers. Robert Stone describes his life in the years leading up to the national convulsions of the 60's, when he and his wife Janice became part of what would later be known as the "counterculture."Stone is always the outsider- even in the counterculture he is always an observer (just as the terrifying character Danskin, in Stone's greatest novel The Dog Soldiers, remarks, "Im a student of the passing parade...").This book is written by a student of the passing parade who is as often in the parade as not-Stone seems to have had an uncanny knack for being where history was happening, or about to happen, as with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, or in a somnolent New Orleans just emerging from Jim Crow, and a destination for oddball refugees from every corner of the intolerant rural South. Or with California in general, where the American dreams morphed from whitebread and picket fences into the Haight Ashbury, and then faced the twisted mirror of the Manson murders in LA. As Stone writes it, by the time the hippies arrived in California, the strange dreams of American icons like Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, Kerouac, and Stone himself, were being pursued elsewhere.Prime Green has been compared with Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, and that comparison is apt. But it is a bit more than that, too, in that it describes the background of the fixations and images that appeared later in Stone's fiction- the New Orleans of A Hall of Mirrors, the dread feeling of pursuit through a carnival that pervades the Dog Soldiers, even the colors- Prime Green, that are so much a part of my favorite Stone novel, A Flag for Sunrise. This is a beautifully written, important memoir by an important voice in American letters.Hal HerringAuthor of: Famous Firearms of the Old West: From Wild Bill Hickok's Colt Revolvers to Geronimo's Winchester, Twelve Guns That Shaped Our History]]

After reading Wolfe's Electric Acid Test I was compelled to read further re-examinations of the temptuous 60s. Robert Stone's book was promised as another story of the 60s and it is his personal collection of where he was, how he lived the 60s, and an introspective look at what this era meant. But let me start by saying it is not fast and furious like Wolfe's book. Rather it is autobiographical where the reader can relive Stone's life.Starting as a naval enlisted man in the late 50s, Stone returns to his single mother household in New York but quickly marries and lives a meager existence in New Orleans where he has his first child. Other than a telling description of the South in the early 60s the significance of this period is not revealed until he later writes a novel of these influences which is turned in to a movie starring Paul Newman and wife which allows Stone to move to Hollywood and experience that life just as the Sharon Tate murders ruin the free love and sex era generally credited with closing the "dream" of the 60s.But prior to that Robert Stone, aka Forest Gump for the purposes of this book, stumbles into a Stanford fellowship for non college graduates at Stanford. This puts him into the Ken Kesey/Merry Pranksters set so eloquently portrayed in Tom Wolfe's book. Unfortunately, Wolfe's book enlivens the adventure but it is interesting to see Stone's experiences intersect the book. Intersections such as his initial drug use, Kesey's famous trip to New York on the bus staying with Stone and family, and finally Stone's trip to Mexico to cover for Esquire the adventure of the fugitive Kesey. For those who may not know the story I recommend Wolfe's book or a quick detour to Wikipedia will provide the background for what many consider the quisistential book of the 60s.Stone later lives in Europe and brings a new perspective to Americans and how they are viewed during the Vietnam era. Later the book closes with a journalistic tour in Vietnam in 1971 and the decisions to return to America.This book satisfies the desire to learn more of the era of which I participated but missed the hot spot of San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Vietnam. Stone touched them all. I don't consider this book action oriented but rather an introspective review of this time in his life. While not of what I consider wide appeal, I do believe it is significant worth a read by others wanting to re-explore this fascinating time.

Ken Kesey the magician, the mirthful emerged for the first time for me in this book. He found other ways than writing books after a while, and went with that. Stone's attempt to describe what Kesey was like is masterful, at one point. You get the feeling he was too alive to be translated into anything but a personal encounter, and thus he is lost to everyone who never had that experience. This is a sad book, lamenting what has been lost, what has taken the place of the America of 50 years ago, the victory of mass culture, homogenization, the emergence of people like we have in office now in the White House. We lost the culture wars. The Philistines are past the gates, they are in the town hall, dictating how we should act, what we should believe. I also can't help but wonder what the truly phenomenal amount of pot, lsd, peyote and alcohol Stone has consumed over the years has done to his mind and outlook on the world. I found the first part of the book very interesting, absorbing. But from about the time Kesey disappears, actually about 1964, on it becomes a kind of uninspired accounting of the various travels he has made, his career, and not as exciting. Typical of most biopics, so not surprising. I loved his account of New Orleans, his Navy travels, arriving in California, those early days. He has a witty, terse style, which sometimes seems pretty affected, like the early beard, and off-putting. Best part: the story of Neal Cassady's parrot.

well worn territory, nothing new but pleasant enough as a coffee table trip down memory lane. didnt someone once say that if you can remember the sixties you probably werent there. hmh!